Traditional operation of a locomotive starts with a train engineer or a conductor. Sitting in a cab section of a locomotive, the engineer runs the operation of the train. The engineer will manually input commands into the control unit of the locomotive so that the train may speed up, slow down, or brake. Although this set up works well for short trips, longer trips can be exhausting and tedious for a human conductor to be ever vigilant, or to perform tasks adjusting the locomotive systems over a long period of time.
Moreover, while a single locomotive arrangement may work well for short trips, in longer trips or when pulling a heavy transport load, multiple locomotives are needed. When multiple locomotives are connected together they form a consist. Consist configurations are typical for long range freight travel in the transport industry. Usually when a train is put together, one or more consists are connected to pull the remaining railcars. These locomotives can be located together either in the front of the train or split up between the front, middle, and rear portions of the train. In a consist formation one of the multiple locomotives is assigned as a first locomotive. The first locomotive is the one locomotive which is in charge of communicating with the other locomotives of the consist to issue controlling commands such as speeding up, slowing down, or braking depending on the desired effect.
In the freight industry, there are multiple manufacturers of locomotives. The American Association of Railroads (AAR) provides interface standards so that all modern manufactured locomotives can be intermixed and interconnected. These existing interface connections allow for inter-locomotive communications. The existing connections do not however allow for an independent control vehicle to have substantial and detailed control of the first locomotive of the consist. Therefore, it would be advantageous to produce such an independent control vehicle which may wield this level of control and autonomy.
Previous efforts have been made to produce an automatic train operation system, but have not completely addressed the issue of ultimate autonomy for the entire train. One example is United States Patent Application No. US2014/0263860A1 which discloses a system with the goal to control a remote non-distributed power locomotive that is behind a lead distributed power locomotive. However, disclosures such as this have not addressed the issue of producing an independent control vehicle that can interface through existing connections with a first locomotive of a consist to effectively operate the first locomotive from the independent control vehicle. Additionally, efforts such as this have not addressed the issue of controlling a first locomotive as well as remote locomotives through the interconnected independent control vehicle.
As stated earlier, these consists travel great distances hauling their respective payloads. Therefore it would be advantageous to produce a type of automatic operation system which can properly communicate with the different locomotives produced from different manufacturers. An operation system such as this could allow an independent control vehicle to have substantial and detailed control of a first locomotive of the consist. Additionally, this independent control vehicle could allow for distribute power on a train whose first locomotive does not have distributed power equipped. Furthermore, it would be advantageous to produce an automatic operation system that allows for an automated journey of the train thereby lessening the need for additional personnel to ride along with the train as it travels.